That legendary road. Everyone responded ‘How lovely!’ Or ‘Beautiful’ when we responded to their questions as to where we were headed. So – we were looking forward to this bit.

As we approached the mainland again on the ferry, we started to see mountains and snow – we were definitely entering a different zone. In glorious sunshine, we rolled the short distance from the ferry dock into Chaitén. A tiny place, with wide streets and low houses, sea on one side, mountains on the others. Our campground was in the garden of one of these wee houses. Reinforcing the difference was the number of overlanders and touring cyclists in town – 6 cyclists in our campground, more scattered around town in hostals and other backyard camping spots.

Picking up some petrol for the stove from the Copec gas station the following morning, the attendant didn’t blink, filling up our MSR bottle to the requisite level. He’s done it many times.

And off we went. A wide, smooth, paved road, with wide shoulders. And next to no traffic – 4 vehicles per hour until about 11am, then maybe one per km after that. That’s the sum of vehicles from both directions. We got to feeeling that this was a very special cycle path, which allowed occasional motorised vehicles. And many cyclists. A nice feeeling not to be the only oddballs on the road. And what is really different is that these cyclists are not just Europeans – a large majority are locals from Chile and Argentina. The whole tourist infrastructure acknowledges the cyclist’s presence, from shops that sell small amounts – 2 eggs, 30ml tubes of toothpaste – to the large number of little tenting campsites.

And yes, it feels just like you’re pedalling through a National Geographic article. The wide and spectacular views change by the moment. There are shades of Norway in the steep mountains, of New Zealand in the heavily wooded slopes, of the Alaska Highway without the bears and mosquitoes. But mostly, it is like nothing else, with huge natural forests of cedar and southern beech.

The wide and smooth was interrupted in a few places where the asphalt hadn’t reached – areas prone to landslides, and steep and winding sections. The ripio is generally fine, and well maintained; no trouble at all, except for the loose material on the curves… so the series of hairpin bends on a very steep section caused us to have to push. Even keeeping one’s footing on the steep bends was a challenge. There was much swearing.

It didn’t help that we tackled this section at the end of the day, after 70km and a significant amount of climbing. You know how it goes: do it now, it’s just a hill, get over it. Peak heat, peak traffic, peak dust, peak flies, tired. And a gap in campground provision at the end, so a wild camp with a bucket wash to wipe off the worst of the dust. Then, glorious asphalt again.